The power of his title, as he well knows from years of playing this game, intimidates people on both sides of the law.
Ergo, no one — in the church or outside of the church — has the guts to challenge him.
Once again, we have a case crying for justice that never will be brought to court because the meek Catholic community lacks the will to rise up. This must be one of those turn-the-other-cheek moments.
They Can’t Face Serious Issues
Their leaders are off munching candy bars. They can protest against a flimsy movie because that is not personal. It also is not real life.
When it comes to making a moral decision that affects the thinking of thousands or more of people, they are pathetic puppy dogs.
For Cardinal Mahony’s disgustingly immoral, illegal behavior in the priest/boy molestation scandals and for his aggressive recruitment of illegal immigrants and their sneaky enablers, he deserves your scorn.
When the bodies of molesting Southern California priests were pulled off of victimized boys, there was the smiling face of the cardinal at the bottom of the pile.
In a piece under his byline that has been circulated among newspapers this week, the intellectually dishonest religious stooge for the illegal immigrant lobby defends his provision of sanctuaries for illegal criminals and others.
This was a prospective criminal rationalizing his latest crimes against immigration laws while leering from behind the skirts he thinks God wears.
The act of not turning in illegals, as would be called for in a bill the U.S. Senate is to vote on next week, is not that big of a deal.
But it is the culture of general disobedience the Cardinal is fostering among Catholic congregations in the Archdiocese that is the problem.
The Archdiocese and Culver City
Surprisingly and disappointingly, the Catholic lay leadership of Los Angeles and those tough-talking masters of discipline in the Vatican do nothing to punish him. No one is at home at either address.
“Los Angeles Catholic leadership” must be an oxymoron. I am not aware of any leaders. Can you name one?
I learn more from occasionally reading the news-thin Tidings, the weekly newspaper of the Archdiocese, than I do by reading any of the secular newspapers in Southern California.
As a voracious consumer of news and information, I conclude that Catholic lay leadership in Los Angeles is weak or non-existent because I can learn almost nothing about them.
The apparent mutual consent relationship between the embarrassing Cardinal Mahony and his lay leaders — Don’t bug me, and I won’t bug you — parallels my concept of the relationship between the School Board and Dist. Supt. Dr. Laura McGaughey.
They perpetuate each other’s existence by largely ignoring each other’s grossest foibles, providing arm’s-length encouragement only when necessary. That way both parties can remain in power forever, or until voters catch on.
As for the old men in the Vatican, they are strategically tough. They will bring censure down on the head of an uppity parish priest in the tiniest village of Illinois. But they are not manly enough to confront the law-flaunting Cardinal of Los Angeles.
Helplessly, Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley turns up the palms of both hands. You want me to put a cardinal in jail? he says. No chance. Would be a public relations catastrophe.
I understand Mr. Cooley’s retreat. He would lose the Catholic vote for life.
Cardinal Mahony’s blood red cassock must be made of teflon, Not a single person in the Catholic Church has tried to lay a hand on him.
Blame It on Being a Bachelor
By way of explanation — not to be mistaken for a defense — I believe his perennial tone deafness can be partially attributed to the fact he is an old man who never has married. Like the bachelor Norwegian farmers storyteller Garrison Keillor talks about, these indelicate relics were meant to live hundreds of miles away from normal society.
I long have believed that persons who have not married never, generally speaking, should be appointed to a position of authority. They lack a sense of the responsibility that married persons gain, even if only by osmosis.
As one who is active in his religion, I have not understood — ever since the priest/boy molestation scandal broke — how Catholics can pray in a church overseen by a man who openly mocks church law and the laws of the government.
Cardinal Mahony repeatedly has demonstrated a remarkable impulse in his mushy heart for lying, for hiding child molesters and for harboring illegal immigrants by putting a dress on his inelegant language.
He needs a heart transplant.
Where, a man wonders, are the serious Catholics of Los Angeles?
The lay leadership went on holiday when the priest/boy molestation scandals broke.
Cardinal Mahony hid out the priests, told lies about them, and moved them around the country like chess pieces to elude police. Worse, he continues to get away with it. You know the game is over when law enforcement stars such as Mr. Cooley say the Cardinal is too big for them to put away.
In a perverse way, perhaps I am wrong. The Cardinal is an inspiration to boys and girls all over Los Angeles who won’t speak English, whose families are here illegally. He also is a role model for boys who want to grow up to be child molesters or a cardinal who covers up for child molesters because he is too hot for the law to arrest.
He proudly wears the mantle of Molester In Chief, thumbing his nose at the District Attorney, using his bloody cassock to hide persons who are poisoning our society.
The metaphor that Catholics love to use, about the Pope and his flock, about Christ and his flock of followers, must be literally true.
The Catholics of the Los Angeles Archdiocese are sheep, and their very soft lay leadership mimics the role of Little Bo Peep.
